Emerald took her cup of coffee out onto the verandah in time to see the inky night morph into day. She wrapped her fingers around her cup and watched the rising sun light sparks under raindrops on bare branches. As a child she had marvelled at the tiny flares in each frozen drop, believing they were diamonds left by fairies in the night. She smiled at the memory and walked forward for a closer look. She didn’t see the frost coating the steps of her verandah. Within seconds she was sliding on her back all the way down, landing with a thud on the brick path.
Pain shot up both legs. Her first instinct was to call out for Maurice. Her lovely, kind, caring Maurice. Then she remembered. She lay still for a moment and closed her eyes. This, like so many things now, she would have to manage herself. She turned onto her hands and knees and reached for the verandah post to pull herself up.
Two weeks later her ankle gave way and she fell again, this time knocking her knees on the concrete drive. The pain travelled to her hip joint. It flared up and down her whole leg in fierce bursts as she limped up the path. Time to ring the doctor. Then she remembered the Medical Centre in the nearest town was closed on the weekends and she would have to wait until Monday to ring for an appointment. The only alternative was to drive fifty kilometres to the hospital’s Emergency Department in the city, but she was too sore to drive.
On Monday she rang the Medical Centre. When someone eventually answered the phone she was told she could have an appointment in three days.
She parked in front of the Medical Centre and on her way in stopped to read all the notices covering the front door. There was the notice reminding patients the Medical Centre was closed on weekends. When she’d driven Maurice to the Emergency Department in the city five years ago they’d sat in the crowded waiting room for six hours, ignored by the receptionist. She’d seen an elderly couple stagger in. After an hour the woman tried to stand then collapsed onto the floor. She crawled on her hands and knees to the bathroom. The receptionist didn’t look up. No one offered to help. Emerald walked over to the reception desk and knocked on the window. The receptionist raised her eyes from her computer. Emerald told her a doctor was needed for the woman on the floor. The receptionist replied curtly that all the doctors were busy and everyone had to wait until their numbers were called. She turned back to her computer.
On the Medical Centre door Emerald read notices that informed patients they must not enter if they felt ill. They must go home and ring their doctor from there. The notices had been up since the time Covid had descended on the country. She hobbled through the door into the waiting room. More notices around the reception desk. Payment must be made on the day of consultation or there would be a surcharge. If an appointment ran over the allotted ten minutes there would be a surcharge on the fee. Emerald thought of her old GP from thirty years ago. He had once scolded her for not ringing him immediately when she’d been ill and told her that if she ever felt so ill again, even if it was in the middle of the night, she must ring him and he would come to her home and check on her. All that was gone now. Medical care was a business like any other. Since the government had reduced subsidies, patients were simply a source of revenue. Numbers to be ticked off a list.
The doctor who ushered her into his room was new to the Medical Centre. He was one of a steady procession of doctors from other countries helping to fill the shortage of medical personnel in this country by staying a few months in time for the skiing season. The current doctor typed on his computer with his back to Emerald while she explained what had happened when she slid on the ice. He told her she had probably torn a ligament in her leg and he would refer her to the Physiotherapy Clinic through Accident Compensation so she wouldn’t have to pay. He handed her a prescription.
At the Physiotherapy Clinic the walls were full of notices too, warning about the penalties if payment wasn’t made on the day of consultation. Warnings about being charged the full amount if a cancellation wasn’t given two days in advance.
The physio was attentive and helpful. He told Emerald she didn’t have a torn ligament, what she had was sciatica. Her fall had resulted in her muscles and spine compressing and trapping a nerve. He massaged the sore bits and gave her some exercises to do at home and assured her the condition was treatable. He advised her not to take the medication the GP had prescribed as it would give her a stomach ulcer. He told her to come back in three days for a check-up.
As Emerald was leaving the room and heading for the exit the receptionist called her back and said she had forgotten to pay. ‘I thought Accident Compensation was covering it,’ said Emerald. ‘No, they cover part but there’s a surcharge that you must pay.’ Emerald paid and limped out the door past all the notices warning of dire consequences for overdue payment and cancelled appointments.
The fog of the last three days was lifting outside although the sky was bleak.
Emerald glanced at her watch and saw she had just enough time to drive the fifty kilometres into town for her appointment at the ear clinic for her hearing test. Halfway there she had to stop for roadworks. She looked at her watch again and hoped that the snotty receptionist wasn’t on duty today. She was.
Miss Snot looked up from her computer, mouth pulled tight like a cat’s bum and told Emerald her appointment was cancelled and she would have to reschedule. Emerald tried several times to explain about the physio and the roadworks and the fact she lived fifty kilometres away. The receptionist handed her a card with the new appointment time set for next week and went back to her computer.
Emerald drove home through rain so heavy it ricocheted off the roads and made lakes in the grass verges. It was still raining when she parked her car in the garage and walked up the path to her front door. Her leg felt less painful now. She thought of the physio with gratitude. As she reached in her bag for her key she noticed a large spider web in a corner of the porch, the delicate intricacy of its threads illuminated by a flash of sunlight behind the looming black clouds, transforming the web into gold lace. Emerald stood watching it for a long time before turning her key in the lock.
Sandra Arnold is an award-winning writer with seven published books: Her new novella-in-flash The Bones of the Story, Impspired Books, UK; A short story collection, Where the Wind Blows, Truth Serum Press, Australia. Her novel The Ash, the Well and the Bluebell, Mākaro Press, NZ is also published in Bulgaria by Aviana Burgas; A flash fiction collection, Soul Etchings, Retreat West Books, UK; A non-fiction book Sing no Sad Songs, Canterbury University Press, NZ; Two earlier novels, Tomorrow’s Empire, Horizon Press, NZ; A Distraction of Opposites, Hazard Press, NZ. Her short fiction has been published and anthologised internationally and has received nominations for The Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions and The Pushcart Prize. She has held writing residencies in The Robert Lord Cottage, Dunedin and the Seresin/Landfall/ University of Otago Press, Waterfall Bay. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Central Queensland University, Australia.
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